ABUJA — Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has raised a red flag over what he described as a grave constitutional breach following claims that the tax acts recently gazetted differ from the versions passed by the National Assembly.
In a strongly worded statement issued in Abuja on Sunday, Atiku said the Senate’s confirmation of discrepancies between the gazetted tax laws and those duly passed by lawmakers amounted to an alarming assault on constitutional order and the integrity of Nigeria’s lawmaking process.
He warned that any law published in a form never approved by parliament was not merely defective but a complete nullity.
Citing Section 58 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Atiku stressed that lawmaking is a clear and rigid process requiring passage by both chambers of the National Assembly, presidential assent and subsequent gazetting, insisting that gazetting alone neither creates nor amends a law.
“Gazetting is a purely administrative act of publication; it does not create law, amend law or cure illegality,” he said.
According to him, where a gazette misrepresents what was approved by the legislature, it carries no legal force and poses a serious constitutional danger.
Atiku further cautioned that any alteration of a bill after its passage, without legislative approval, amounts to forgery rather than clerical error, adding that no directive from the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, could legitimise such an act.
He warned that attempts to hurriedly re-gazette the laws while stalling a full investigation would undermine parliamentary oversight and set a perilous precedent.
“Illegality cannot be cured by administrative speed,” he said.
The former Vice President emphasised that his position was not an attack on tax reform but a firm defence of legislative integrity and constitutionalism.
He maintained that only a fresh passage by the National Assembly, followed by presidential assent and proper gazetting, could produce a valid tax law for the country.
